Oktapodi

Like last year, I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated animated short films. However, unlike last year, in addition to the nominees, several "commended films" were also shown. In this review I'll make my predictions, though if it's anything like last year's choices, I'll probably once again pick the wrong shorts as my favorite for the award.

OKTAPODI is a cute computer generated film about two octopi who are in love. However, when the lady octopus is taken for someone's dinner, the male responds in super-hero fashion to rescue her. So, he goes bouncing about the streets of what appears to be Greece--chasing the delivery truck that has his mate.

Oddly, while this film is lovely to look at and sweet, it also is only about three minutes long--making it incredibly short to receive the Oscar nomination. Because of this, the great similarity of the work to a typical Pixar or Dreamworks film and the slightness of the plot, this film seems very, very unlikely to win the award. I enjoyed the film but by the time I was starting to really get into the film it was over!! I would really love to see what this French studio could do given a longer format, as they are very talented and clever.

UPDATE: LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES was the winner this year. Not surprisingly, I got this one wrong but at least saw the film as a strong contender.

Nicely fit with a violin playing on the background; Oktapodi offers a fast paced, very well crafted short animation. It has the style of the famous "Coyote & Road Runner series" of Warner Bros:

1/ Full throttle in action and humour 2/ No dialogue based script 3/ Excellent coordination between character movements, voice-overs and sound effects 4/ Follows the beats and notes of the playing instruments to transform action into humour

Oscar nomination is very well worthy. In my opinion, this could've been won the Oscar if:

1/ Octopuses haven't been urged on like dolphins jumping out of water or like grasshoppers hopping between locations 2/ Octopuses could've been more real-like, more ugly, more dirty, more clammy, more thick-skinned 3/ The rat race could've been more outlasting

Viewable by all ages -especially children- , watchable on Youtube and downloadable on KickYoutube; Oktapodi is noteworthy.

An octopus in a shop loses his partner when she is plucked from the tank and loaded for shipment. The octopus gives chase through the Greek town in order to rescue her.

A very short film this one in the mould of Pixar animations. The computer animation looks good even if it does owe a debt to that studio in terms of what it does and the story allows for the delivery of a good run of chuckles and action. I did think it was just a little too short and that I could have done with a bit more edge or reference in the humour (if ever a sequence was crying out for a Raiders of the Lost Ark reference, it is the fight in the cab here) but it was still amusing and had a good firm ending. The music is a little obvious and I wasn't really loving it with its obvious Greek soundtrack, but the action on-screen mostly distracted me from it.

Fans of the Pixar shorts will enjoy this as it mostly shares qualities with those, despite being not quite of that standard. Amusing and looks good though.

The French animated short "Oktapodi" tells the story of a pair of octopuses (octopi?) who refuse to get separated. It doesn't have the most sophisticated plot or animation, but I liked it. Like many cartoons, it shows that a story doesn't need words. The setting looks like a Greek village. Some of the octopus's stunts look like what we see in action flicks.

"Oktapodi" has several credited directors, including Emud Mokhberi, who spent part of his childhood in Iran and France, but is now a US citizen. It got nominated for Best Animated Short Film at he 81st Academy Awards but didn't win. It's not a great cartoon, but I think that it's worth seeing.

So this was an oscar nominee. But it's very unlike other oscar nominated shorts I know about. It is not a serious film. It's just that it is enjoyable.

I like it because it's really well made. The stunts were more realistic than full length action films. But the scenes of octopodes jumping from one pool to another, a bit too over the top.

Best thing about it is it's length. It's very short(only two minutes long). There is not a single second of time waste. Anyway, it's a good film but I doubt if I am going to remember it for a long time.